


After Days

by char_mander



Category: Batman (Comics), Justice League
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Gen, Inspired by The Walking Dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-21 15:57:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3698270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/char_mander/pseuds/char_mander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in the universe in a universe similar to The Walking Dead, Bruce Wayne leads a group of survivors through the zombie-ridden wreckage of what was once Gotham City in the hopes of finding a place untouched by the apocalyptic virus. Potential major character death. Many pairings will likely make an appearance (e.g. Dick/Babs and Harley/Pam).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Home Destroyed

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea I've been toying around with for awhile. Speaking now as I'm starting it, I'm not sure if the ending will turn out exactly as I am currently planning for it to (I tend to change my mind a lot as a story goes on). There is a heavy potential of major character death, and I will probably end up throwing in a few popular pairings just for fun - romance is not a central theme of this story. Despite being set in a TWD-esque universe, there is no crossover between the two comics or their characters. There is some divergence from canon as far as character hometowns and relationships, but nothing that hasn't been changed for logic's sake. I hope you enjoy!

Bruce Wayne had been born a billionaire, not that it mattered now. 

No, money hadn't mattered in a very long time - or rather, what felt like a very long time, and had actually been . . . a few months, maybe. Perhaps even a full year. Alfred would know, but no one was asking. Time had ceased to be important in their lives. In fact, truthfully, it felt like it had stopped existing. As if, somehow, they were all sharing the same single moment of one horrific nightmare which never ended. Though, Bruce supposed, it could be worse. He could have lost his family, like so many of the other survivors they had come across, back at the beginning. He could have been trapped in the city when the real outbreak began, and watched as thousands of people around him were eaten alive. He could have been eaten alive himself. He could have _not_ been born a billionaire, and not had a big, lovely mansion to hide in while the rest of the world burned. 

Yeah, it could be worse. 

"Fucking zombies," Jason had liked to say, back when Jason was still around. He said it like he didn't believe it, no matter what the reports said or survivors told him. "Fucking zombies," with a shake of his head.

Back before things got as bad as the got, back when Wayne Manor was still a fortress against the ugly plague dominating the Western world, Bruce had converted the lower levels of the mansion into a sort of refugee camp. Anyone who could make it from Gotham City to the zombie-proof gates of Wayne Manor alive and unbitten would be allowed inside, fed, and given a place to sleep. Dr. Leslie Thompkins had been kind enough to provide medical care to anyone who needed it. That is, unless they needed it because they had been bitten by a zombie. Those who arrived at Wayne Manor after being bitten were not allowed inside. They _were_ offered morphine for the pain, until the morphine ran out and a man named Eiling would offer them a bullet instead. Bruce disliked Eiling and he disliked guns, but he understood mercy when he saw it and never bothered to protest. 

Selina had not approved of Bruce's open-door policy, at first. She was certain Bruce was inviting thieves and murderers into their home, into the roof under which his and her children slept. Selina was Bruce's wife, though sometimes she felt more like his antagonist (in a most loving way, of course). She and her son from a previous marriage, Jason Todd, had lived with Bruce at Wayne Manor for what was at that point nearing eleven years. Unlike Jason, Selina knew very well how bad things were down in the city, she simply didn't care. "Our family should always come first," she told her husband. "Before everything." In the end though, Selina was very grateful for the refugees living beneath. 

Oliver Queen had also been born a billionaire, as coincidence would have it. He and Bruce had met, of course, several times at past events neither of them really recalled. Actually, they had known each other most of their lives, but not as friends. Mostly, they were aware of one another's existence, in a way that all billionaires are. Their parents may have been friends at one time or another, but Bruce's parents had been murdered long before any of the zombie nonsense had broken out, and Bruce had been significantly less social afterwards. Ollie Queen did not blame him for that, not one bit.

However, when all the zombie nonsense _did_ break out, Star City was hit first and hit hard. Oliver was left with a hard choice to make. Should he stay in the city he called home through the bitter end, or should he snatch away his family and haul ass to the nearest safety net he could find? Being a wise man, he chose the latter. He and his girlfriend and his nephew boarded the Queens' private jet, and Oliver found that he had only one destination on his lips,  _Gotham._ In his most desperate hour, Bruce Wayne was the only name that came to mind. 

That was how their survival group  _began._ The Queen Party and the Wayne Party had granted themselves the privilege of staying in the upstairs bedrooms of Wayne Manor, while refugees crowded the floors below. Bruce was not happy about the arrangement. He argued that refugees should be let upstairs as well since there was so much crowding on the first level. _No, absolutely not,_ his wife had drawn the line. Fine then, he refused to be a hypocrite, and insisted that he too sleep below. _No way in hell,_ his wife threatened. 

So, when the zombies did break through the big iron gates outside Wayne Manor, and they did wander all the way up to the mansion in one huge, foul herd, the screams of the refugees below woke the billionaires above, and gave them more than enough time to escape through one of Wayne Manor's very convenient hidden tunnels. Bruce Wayne was riddled with guilt for weeks. Oliver Queen felt bad as well, but mostly he was happy to be alive. 

And it wasn't like they were the only survivors from the Gotham Outbreak. A few of the lucky refugees at Wayne Manor had managed to escape the gruesome fate, led by Bruce's adopted son and moral double, Dick Grayson. Lucky for the refugees, Selina had no control at all over where Dick slept, and after watching his adopted father whipped into submission, he opted to sleep on the lower level alone. He befriended many of the refugees, some he was able to help escape. None of them billionaires; at that point, being a billionaire really didn't matter. They merged together in the woods and hiked to safety as a new family. 

"Bruce knows the area better than anyone," someone said. "He'll lead us on from here."

"Where's Jason?" Selina asked, her head searching frantically over their small crowd.

But all that was few months ago, perhaps a full year. The Gotham Survivors plus three from Star City had set up a semi-permanent camp just outside the woods that surrounded Wayne Manor. They'd turned old cars and trucks from Bruce's garage into shelters, dug a large fire pit, and made use out of odds and ends of the land. They hunted for their own food - something Oliver and his nephew Roy Harper proved to be quite excellent at, despite never having fired an arrow before in their lives. The Waynes had a hunting shed not too deep into the woods, and they had raided it for all the traps and weapons and supplies it stored. Maybe being a billionaire wasn't totally useless, yet. 

"If we could get to the other side of the city," Tim Drake mused one sunny afternoon. Tim was one of the survivors Dick had saved. "I'll bet we could find someplace safe."

"The west is gone," Roy argued. "Trust me. The outbreak  _started_ in the west. Star City's been gone for months - last we head before Gotham was taken, Keystone and Central were gone too. There's no where left to run."

"Unless you care to try your luck swimming across the Atlantic, Drake," Damian Wayne suggested. "In which case I say, by all means, do go on." 

Dick Grayson hit his adopted half-brother on the back of the head. The message was clear:  _behave._

"Uncalled for!" Damian protested. 

"Overruled," his father said, sitting down between his two sons. Bruce was holding a bucket of fish, which he set down in front of them. He'd spent the morning on the lake, it would seem. 

Damian was the only child of both Bruce and Selina, and therefore acted as their mutual territory. Selina couldn't control Dick, and Bruce could never control Jason, but they both had say over Damian at least. When the two were spatting, as they were in that particular moment, it was Damian's job to moderate communications.  

"Mr. Wayne," Tim began, readying to begin his proposal all over again for their group leader.

"Bruce," Bruce corrected. Ever since Tim's father had died, Bruce had thought of himself as the boy's unofficial guardian. If the world still existed in the way it had before, he figured he would have tried to go ahead and adopt the boy in a similar situation.  _  
_

"Bruce," Tim amended. "I have reason to believe that beyond the boundaries of Gotham City in the west, there is an area of land untouched by the zombie virus. A safe zone."

"And the reason behind this belief?" Bruce asked, pulling a fish out of the bucket and beginning to gut it. Damian watched from one side in fascination. Dick, fighting the urge to gag, attempted to assist by gutting another fish on his own. 

Tim had been hovering over a map laid out on the ground, which he now slid into Bruce's view. In red marker, the woods they were staying around had been circled and labeled "WE ARE HERE." In blue marker, the farmland outside Metropolis had been circled and labeled "POTENTIAL SAFE ZONE". "Metropolis was still holding out against infection when Gotham went under," Tim reminded them all. "For all we know, they could have figured out a cure by now!"

" _Cure?"_ Roy repeated incredulously. Bruce was reminded, briefly, of his missing stepson. "There is no cure. There is  _kill_ or  _become_. I prefer the former." 

Tim belonged to the group of people who would never hurt a fly, much less a zombie, because they believed there was a chance to "fix" the virus and give the infected their lives back. Roy belonged to the group of people who would just as quickly shoot a zombie's brains out as step on an ant, because they believed there was no chance of "fixing" anything. Dick Grayson found that he was somewhere in the middle.

"It's a valid theory," he interjected, trying to keep the peace. Tim and Roy were both his friends, after all. 

"And even if the city did go down, which I'll grant you  _is_ very likely," Tim went on, "the farms  _outside_ Metropolis weren't even being threatened when the radio signals went out! Even if zombies did take the city, the farms could still be safe!"

"And private property," Dinah Lance, Oliver's long-time girlfriend, pointed out. "We'd be trespassing." 

"Who cares about trespassing?" Damian asked. "The world is ending; laws have no meaning. We should be free to do as we please."

"Anarchy is nothing to aim for," his father scolded. Damian simply rolled his eyes.

 "Nevertheless, we  _can't_ stay here much longer," Tim said, going back to the main issue they'd been discussing all week. "Everyday zombies push further and further into the woods. The other day, Harley told me she found rat carcasses all over the ground just beyond the--"

"Harley _Quinzel_ _?"_ Damian cut in. "You're going to believe that? She probably killed the rats and put them there just to have a laugh."  _  
_

Bruce shot his youngest son a look. "Tim, I agree with you, but . . . The only way  _out_ of Gotham is  _through_ Gotham, and I can't put all of our lives at risk that way."

Tim shot to his feet in a furious passion. "You're putting all our lives at risk by staying here!"

He stormed away, leaving the rest of them to simmer in their guilt. Tim Drake rarely got worked up, and when he did, it was never for nothing. Maybe he felt like he was being silenced, or ignored, or maybe he felt like his father had died on a scouting mission two weeks before for absolutely nothing. 

After a few moments of heavy silence, Dick nudged his adopted father's shoulder with his own. "We could always scope out the city, just to see . . . I mean, we haven't even tried to go back since we fled the Manor. For all we know, the army could have sent in reinforcements. The city could be re-secured." 

"Doubtful," Damian muttered. 

Bruce thought the proposal over. Eventually, he shook his head. "No, no I can't take the risk."

" _You_ don't have to," Dick said. "I'll go."

"By yourself? Absolutely not."

"Hey, I know things have been a little hectic lately but, in case you forgot - I'm an adult now. I can make my own choices."

"You may be an adult but you're still  _my_ kid," Bruce said sternly, in that way that always sent chills down Dick's spine. Only this time, instead of chills he felt a warmth in his chest. Bruce rarely said things like " _my_ kid" in such a possessive way - a caring way. 

Dick nodded. "Fine; you and me, just the two of us. Like old times." He smirked at Damian, then turned back to Bruce. "We won't bring anyone else, won't put anyone's life in danger. C'mon, Bruce. You know me; you know I can handle myself."

Bruce still didn't seem very keen on the idea, but his resolve was breaking. "Fine," he said. "We'll leave tomorrow morning at dawn - save as much daylight as we can."

"Great!" Dick cheered, beaming. He abandoned the poor attempt at gutting a fish and stood up. "I'll go tell Tim."

Once he was gone, Roy turned to Bruce. "Y'know," he said, "you could use an archer in the city. Give you the high-ground advantage." 

Bruce didn't even look up from his fish. "Absolutely not."

Roy folded his arms across his chest in a gesture of sass and rebellion he had mastered at the age of 10. "And why not?"

"Your uncle would never agree."

"You're right, Ollie would want to come with." 

"I'd want to come with what?" Oliver asked, sitting down next to Bruce with his own animal carcasses - squirrels, in his case. 

"Bruce and Dick are going into the city tomorrow, to see if it's any different than the way we left it," Roy explained quickly, knowing very well what his uncle would say.

"Great, I've been dying to take a road trip," Ollie agreed casually, pulling out his knife and starting to skin the animal. 

"Oliver, it may not be safe."

"You're right, we should bring Dinah along as backup."

Bruce sighed. 

* * *

 

Dick Grayson had not been born a billionaire, but he had been adopted by one. 

Dick had, in fact, been born into the final generation of a world-renowned acrobatic family, The Flying Graysons. His parents, John and Mary Graysons, were the two remaining decedents from a long line of performers in the traveling show, Haly's Circus. They were also Mr. Haly's most popular act. So, when Mr. Haly refused to pay the mob of Gotham a single cent in protection money, John and Mary Grayson took the fall - quite literally, in fact. Someone had left acid on the trapeze wires, and 8-year-old Dick Grayson had watched from the high platform as his parents fell to their deaths without a net.

Bruce Wayne had been in the audience that night. Unlike the rest of the audience, his eyes were not trained on the pair of falling performers destined to hit the ground, but rather on the young boy who was screaming in terror from above. Bruce had watched his own parents die, too, when he was the same age as Dick Grayson was then. When James Gordon sheepishly suggested that Bruce take care of the boy, just for a day or two, Bruce had done him one better. Dick would be his ward, and later his adopted son. They bonded in their grief, and though they didn't always see eye-to-eye, Dick knew that nothing in the world could tear apart the connection between him and Bruce Wayne - not even his own adolescent rebellion. 

Dick and Bruce argued quiet often as Dick got older, and arguments often turned into merciless fights. When Dick graduated high school, he thought it would be best to attend college somewhere out of state - somewhere he could get away from his despicable stepmother and stepbrother, and from the tension that was growing between him and Bruce. For awhile, it had been great. The momentary feeling of absolute freedom he felt whenever he practiced up on the trapeze became a permanent sensation. His entire childhood, he'd lived in fear of never becoming completely independent. Now he had proven to himself and to Bruce that he could, and if things didn't change he would, live on his own. Realizing the distance growing between them, Bruce had insisted Dick return home from school early in May as soon as the first news of a zombie virus spread to the East coast. 

Dick pretended to protest, but truthfully he was homesick. He missed his brothers most of all, even though they did nothing but drive him insane. And spending some quality time with Bruce for the first time in two years would be . . . Well, a welcomed change. 

Then things had gotten bad. The new semester started in September, but Bruce didn't allow Dick to leave. Dick didn't really protest. The virus had spread all the way to the boarder cities of Metropolis - Dick's school was in a danger zone, and soon enough Gotham would be too. "What's Wayne Industries doing about this?" Dick had asked one night, long after the rest of the family had gone to bed.

Bruce was still leaning over his desk, dark circles under his eyes. "Everything we can."

When the shit really hit the fan, Dick Grayson was the first person out on the streets spreading the news about Wayne Manor.  _We have clean water, food, shelter._ _Anything is better than here. Please, please, please._ The mansion filled up fast. Soon there was hardly any room to breath, but somehow everyone managed. Bruce suggested they move some refugees to the second floor, and Dick agreed. Selina said only over her dead body. Dick thought,  _wouldn't that be a shame?_ but said "fine, then I'm joining them down there." And he did. That was where he met the Drake family - Tim, Tim's dad, and Tim's stepmom. 

Dick had been with them when the zombies broke through the front door. He watched with them as dozens of people - men, women, children all alike - were devoured alive. He heard their screams, saw their blood splatter. Later, he found some of it on himself, and he didn't even know whose. Everything Bruce had taught him about being a leader, taking care of others, kicked into hyperdrive. Dick Grayson saved two dozen refugees from Wayne Manor - and left two hundred more to die. 

Somehow, those two dozen had felt like enough, at least for a little while. 24 people was something, something to show that Dick hadn't given up. He hadn't run back up to the second floor with his billionaire daddy and let the poor people die. 

Then, Tim's parents died anyway. His stepmother went first - she had been bitten in the attack, but didn't notice until later. That hit everyone hard. Then, Tim's father and two other men had been eaten by stray zombies wandering up from the mountain. Dick had been with them, and so had Tim, but the two boys survived because Dick was an acrobat, and a strong one, and he had pulled Tim up into the safety of a tree while the three men screamed for mercy below. 

He had to go back to Gotham, now. For Tim. 

When Bruce told him Oliver and Roy would be joining them, Dick didn't protest. It was smart to have archers with them, they could stay up on the building roofs while Dick and Bruce canvased the streets below. They wouldn't be bringing guns - there were no guns to bring, other than the one Selina had stolen from Eiling's corpse (he had been one of the two men to die with Mr. Drake). 

"Please be careful," Selina said to her husband and stepson as they stood at the edge of their camp, shouldering a days' worth of supplies. She sounded bored, but Dick knew her well enough to guess that she was hiding legitimate worry. Every since they'd lost Jason trying to escape, Selina had been . . . warmer, somehow - but sad, too. 

"We will," Bruce promised, and lightly kissed her on the cheek. Bruce Wayne was not a man who often engaged in public displays of affection, but he was a man who as well aware that he could die that day. 

"I can't believe you're letting  _Grayson_ go but not me," Damian pouted. Bruce laid a hand on his son's shoulder and squeezed. Damian would have never allowed a hug, never mind a kiss on the cheek. 

That did not stop Dick from giving him both anyway. "I'll miss you little bro!" he announced dramatically, encompassing Damian in the tightest hug the child had probably ever received. 

"Release me!" Damian demanded, squirming in Dick's grip. "Release me now!" 

Dick did, eventually, and ended his affectionate goodbye with one final ruffle of Damian's hair. Scowling, the younger boy stepped back to make way for his mother. 

"Dick," Selina said hesitantly. 

"Selina," he replied in a similar manner. 

She stared at him for a moment, with a look of contemplation on her face. After what might have been a full minute or three days, in one quick motion Selina wrapped her arms around Dick's neck, squeezed tightly, and released. Her face was slightly flushed after the gesture, but her verbal coldness did not break. "Try not to die."

Dick, baffled by the hug, simply replied, "sure." 

"Where's Dinah?" Roy asked, looking around the crowd for his aunt. 

"Here," Dinah replied, appearing from the shadows beside him. She too had a backpack on, ready for the trip to the city.

"Wait, Dinah's coming?" Dick asked with a wide smile on his face. Dinah was one of his favorite camp-mates, in part for her good sense of humor and the fact that she had the face of an angel and ferocity of a fight dog. 

"I thought you were joking about that," Bruce confessed to Oliver.

Oliver chuckled. "No way she'd let us go on our own. Doesn't think we can handle ourselves."

"Only speaking the truth, dear," Dinah said. For extra sarcasm, she gently stroked his cheek like a worried mother. 

Tim emerged from the crowd of onlookers then, all who had gathered to see the scout party off. "Dick!" he called excitedly. "Wait!"

He approached his friend with tangible enthusiasm. "Sorry, I slept in. Wanted to say goodbye."

Dick wrapped his arms around Tim, quickly, and in a very platonic way. "I'll be back."

"I know you will." Tim Drake had quietly idolized Dick Grayson ever since the events at Wayne Manor so many months ago. Watching him save all those lives, Tim had realized that Dick was what a real hero looked like - not some crap from the movies.  _  
_

"Thank God the Wayne garage was stocked and ready for us," Oliver remarked, climbing into the driver's seat of a Jeep they had recovered from the mansion shortly after their escape, along with a half dozen other vehicles. "Almost like you guys knew the zombie apocalypse was coming."

"All aboard," Dinah added, swinging into the car beside her boyfriend. Since the front seat was a bench, Bruce was also able to sit up with them. Roy and Dick shared the backseat, feeling a little patronized but not enough to say so. 

"Be safe!" someone called again. It might have been Selina. 

"No shit," Roy hissed under his breath. Dick laughed, and Oliver Queen put his foot on the gas. 


	2. A City in Ruins

Gotham was a city where crime ran wild and trust had become a failing economy. There were crooked officials, crooked cops, crooked lawyers, crooked doctors, crooked pastry chiefs, and so on. Citizens were starving in the streets, guaranteed at least one murder had happened on every corner, and if a small business managed to stick around longer than a few months, it probably meant they were working with the mob. The people of Gotham had absolutely nothing to be proud of. That, of course, didn't stop them, much like it didn't stop Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson from feeling a sickly sense of nostalgia, as if they were attending the funeral of a good friend, as they roamed the desolate ruins of what had once been their home.

Dick, particularly, seemed to be experiencing a sort of shock to his system after being exposed to the emptiness of the city. Echoes of violence remained on building walls and on the pavement - blood, rotting carcasses, the occasional severed limb. Graffiti was replaced by dried guts, which clung on to the sides of buildings in ambiguous outlines of whatever horrific act had placed them there. Cars were parked and abandoned in the middle of the main roads, windows were shattered, and of course, stores had been looted. Not even the God damn zombie apocalypse could ruin a good opportunity to loot in Gotham City. And Dick walked right out into the center of it all, letting the tragedy surround him. Never in his life had the world seemed so empty, nor had he felt so alone.

Then, Bruce Wayne was there, putting his hand firmly on the boy's shoulder. He didn't say it, but what he meant was,  _it's okay, Dick._ What he did say, after a few moments of silence for their fallen home, was, "I've seen Gotham in some pretty rough shape in my lifetime. This . . . is worse."

Dick cracked a smile at that, because he'd rather crack a smile than let guys like Roy or Bruce see him cry. "We grew up here, Brucie." 

"Yes, we did."

"You raised me in this place."

"Yes, I did." Bruce allowed himself to be momentarily sentimental. "I think I did all right."

Dick's heart panged a little, but he made the next joke anyway. "That was mostly Alfred's handiwork." 

That earned him an arm all the way around his shoulders. Alfred was a sore subject - like Jason, no one had seen him since Wayne Manor. According to Selina, she'd last seen Alfred climbing down the stairs to tend to their 'guests'. That had hurt - Dick had managed to save only a few of the people on the mansion's first level, but the fact that Alfred _could_ have been one of them and _wasn't_ would haunt him forever. 

"He did all right by us," Bruce said of his butler, who was really more like a father than anything else.

"More than all right," Dick agreed. 

"Y'all right down there?" Ollie called from a rooftop somewhere nearby. 

"Absolutely!" Dick called back, grinning. "Haven't seen a single zombie yet!"

"Knock on wood, you mother fucker," Roy called down, earning him a parental "Roy!" from Oliver, who wasn't supposed to let him swear. Really, Oliver didn't mind the swearing, but he knew Dinah liked it when he pretended to. 

"Fine," Roy amended. " _Please_ knock on wood, you mother fucker."

"Superstitious much?" Dick asked. 

" _Cautious_ is more like it. I'm not kidding. Find a piece of wood down there and knock on it."

Dick rolled his eyes. "Too bad you're not down here to let me use your head, Harper."

Roy made a face that complimented the eye roll rather well. "Ha ha."

"Let's look down this block," Bruce said, tilting his head to the left. His attempts to refocus the younger members of the group did not pass unnoticed and, blushing slightly, Dick followed after. Roy and Oliver continued to scan the grounds from their higher altitude, and Dinah drove after them slowly, keeping an eye out for any potential attacks from behind and keeping a close eye on the extra weapons. 

After about a half an hour of walking around, Roy saw it appropriate to make a verbal observation. "I don't think there are any zombies." 

"Yeah," Ollie added, "it's kind of weird."

"Maybe they're nocturnal," Dinah suggested. She had parked the car a little ways down the street they were on, and had joined Dick and Bruce in searching the windows and around corners.

"Maybe Tim was right," Dick said, just as the first zombie they didn't see came around the corner behind them.

"I wouldn't go that far just yet." Bruce took a sip of water from the bottle he'd brought along. A second unseen zombie joined the first.

He, Dick, and Dinah moved together to check inside an overturned car outside an abandoned deli. Anything useful they had found in cars, they'd put back in the Jeep to take home. So far, they'd only found a few odds and ends that were worth bringing back to camp. It was almost as if someone else had already looted the post-apocalyptic Gotham City. Three more zombies joined the first two.

"Careful before you open that!" Ollie called down, referring to the car door. Back in Star City, he'd seen footage on the rescue team opening up a car wreck, only to be attacked by the newly-turned zombies inside. He was too concerned for his girlfriend to bother looking up. The number of zombies was reaching the double digits.

Roy too was very invested in the investigation of the overturned car. He'd been dying to find something interesting on this trip - at least something that he could bring back to camp with a good story to tell. Or maybe a pillow - they didn't have a single goddamned pillow at camp. The zombies had accumulated into what would have been concerned a full herd.

"Argh!" Dick groaned, as he and Bruce tried to pry the door open. "It won't budge."

"Lemme help," Dinah offered. The door was badly dented from whatever accident had landed it in it's current condition, and even the three of them combined did not have the strength to pull it open. Dinah looked up to the rooftops. "Ollie! Come help!"

Oliver dutifully began to descend per her request. Roy followed after, eager to be included in the action. Besides, he didn't think there were any zombies. 

Ten minutes later, the five of them had secured a thick rope through the open window and around the door, and were pulling on it in a losing tug-of-war game. The number of zombies was now past the point of realistically counting, and anyone who tried would be eaten alive before they reached the final number. Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Dinah Lance, Roy Harper, and Oliver Queen also would have been eaten alive, had it not been for the two humans that were coincidentally running by.

"Hey!" Wally West called, loudly enough to attract the five scouts' attention. Wally himself was standing at the edge of a side street, right across from where the herd had started to move. The herd could also hear Wally, and they began to stalk after him instead. Zombies enjoyed lively prey, it would seem.

"Was that a human?" Dinah asked, shocked.

"Who cares?" Roy asked back, prepping his bow in the direction of the zombies. "Run!"

The five of them sprinted off in the opposite direction of the herd, careful to stay close together but smart enough not to dally.

"Who was that guy?" Dick asked, panting.

"I don't know," Bruce said. "Maybe we should go back."

None of them stopped running. It was a good thing, too, because a moment later, Wally West ran out from behind another side street, right in front of them.

"Whoa!" He exclaimed. "I thought you guys were goners for sure! Glad you're alive, that's good."

"Wally?!" Dick froze, a smile creeping across his face.

The redheaded man squinted in his direction, trying to make out some distinguishing features beyond all the dirt, blood, and whatever else you ended up with on your face after spending months in the woods. After a second, he got it. "Dick!"

The two men embraced quickly. "What are you doing here?!" they asked excitedly and in unison.

"I'm from here, remember?" Dick answered first. "What about you? I thought you were staying with your uncle in Central."

"I was! Things got bad there, though - fast. We came to Gotham thinking that . . . Well, it would be safer. By the time we got here though, it was like this. We ran into some other survivors, though and they--"

"There are other survivors?" Bruce interrupted.

"Sure," Wally repeated. "We should probably go to them now, before those zombies catch up. Follow me!"

He started to run again, leaving the others in his dust.

"Damn," Roy panted, running alongside Dick. "This kid can run _fast._ How do you know him?"

"College," Dick answered. "And yeah, he was the star of the track team."

"I'll . . . bet . . ." Oliver managed between gasps for air. 

Minutes of running (which felt like years to those who weren't named Wally West) later, the group arrived at the entrance of what might have once been a shopping mall, a thousand and one years ago or before zombies had taken over. Dick paused a moment at the entrance, remembering every time he'd passed through those doors.  _Public school,_ he'd always insisted to Bruce. He wanted to grow up modest - and he had. His not-rich friends had hung around not-rich people stores and ate not-rich people food almost every weekend. He was lost inside himself, searching through all of the memories and feelings he'd neglected to muse on for years. Then Roy Harper rammed into his shoulder in a clumsy attempt to catch up with Wally, and all Dick's cheesier emotions were forgotten. For God's sake, it was the God damned zombie apocalypse. 

They were greeted by another group of zombies inside the mall, trapped in the big picture windows outside the two front shops. Dick, Bruce, Oliver, Dinah, and Roy stopped dead in their tracks. A single question caught in all of their throats,  _what the fuck?_

Wally West, who was no psychic, managed to read their minds. "That's Gerald, and about a  dozen other zombies I haven't named yet. We keep them so any other that pass by look in and only see other zombies, nothing living."

Dick let that sit in. He looked up at the one Wally had pointed to, who must be Gerald. Or must  _have_ been Gerald, when it was alive. Well, Dick noted, Gerald probably was not the man's real name, just what Wally had decided to call him afterwards. But he had  _had_ a name, and probably a family or at least friends. He was wearing business clothes, which also suggested a job. Gerald the Zombie had been someone, a living breathing someone just like the rest of them. And now he was an animated corpse, with sagging gray skin and nothing but long wisps of light-colored hair. His nice clothes were torn, revealing bleeding, rotted flesh. The bite mark that had destined his fate was visible through a hole in his shirt around his neck - a big, gaping chunk of flesh was missing just above his collar bone. Gerald had both his eyes, and both his eyes were dead. 

"Wally?" someone called, in a manner that Dick recognized as slightly paternal - it was the same voice Bruce would use, in his rare moments of tenderness. That was enough to snap him out of the strange gaze he had fixated upon Gerald the Zombie. He realized, pathetically, that the Zombie Apocalypse was  _just now_ hitting him. Months and months and maybe even a year after it had actually started, actually devastated his home and his city,  _now_ he was getting it. Incredible. 

"Uncle Barry, over here!" Wally shouted into the hollow mall. It echoed off the walls and bounced back to them, but before it did that it had managed to reach the ears of Barry Allen. Barry, who had been very worried about his nephew for several hours, ran out as fast as he could to meet him at the entrance. Roy was struck with the random thought that it was quite possible Barry was an even faster runner than Wally, who was the fastest goddamned runner Roy had ever seen. Not that he was bitter or anything.

"These are my new friends," Wally said, gesturing to their group. "Dick and . . . uh . . ."

"Bruce Wayne," Bruce said, stepping forward with his hand out to set a precedent for the rest. He shot Dick a glance from the corner of his eye, which very clearly said  _remember your manners, you were raised by a billionaire._ Dick stepped up next to shake hands. 

"Bruce Wayne," Barry Allen repeated, clearly impressed. "I always wondered what happened to you."

"Oliver Queen," Ollie said, extending his arm as well. 

Barry chuckled a little. "You brought home two of the richest men in the country for dinner?"

"And his girlfriend," Dinah said, smiling fantastically in that way that she had. "Dinah Lance."

"Roy Harper," Roy said last, sounding a little irritated. After following up Bruce Wayne, his ward, Oliver Queen, and a beautiful woman, he felt a little underwhelming. 

"Well, it's swell to meet you," Barry said enthusiastically. Dick mouthed  _swell_ to Wally with a cocked eyebrow. Wally shrugged. "My name's Barry Allen, I'm Wally's uncle and--"

"Leader of our refugee camp," Wally interrupted, a proud grin broad on his face.

"I was going to say 'former forensic scientist'." _  
_

"Whatever, both are true. Come on, I'll introduce you guys to the rest of us."

"How many people do you have here?" Bruce asked, taking charge once again. Dick could practically see the gears turning in his brain, the questions of  _are they a threat? Do they have food? Can they help us or will they hurt us?_ and so on. Bruce Wayne, despite his good upbringing, was not a trusting man. 

Barry put a hand behind his head and let out a  _pfff_ sort of breath. "Probably somewhere between a dozen and twenty; the numbers change, people join, people leave, people . . . die, sometimes."

"The city is really dangerous," Wally helped. "Completely overrun. We've tried breaking through up to the woods a bunch of times but it's hard to move so many people at once."

"We're settled up in the woods," Dick told his friend. "We're trying to get  _out._ Some of us think that . . . well, Metropolis was the last known safe haven."

Wally exchanged a look with his uncle, and it was clear to the others they were coming to a silent agreement. "It could work," Barry said out loud, after a moment.

"Or it could fail horribly," Wally countered pleasantly. "Either way, it sure as hell beats living in _Foot Locker_ for the rest of my life." He turned to Dick. "We're in!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Roy said, stepping forward. "No offense, but I don't recall anyone extending you and invitation."

"Roy!" Oliver scolded.

"We don't know them!" Roy exclaimed.

"I know them," Dick offered. "Wally's a good guy, I'll vouch."

"But what about the others?" Bruce asked gently. "Roy has a valid point, however rudely he displayed it. It's been a very long time since we've been around other people. Loyalties, moral character . . . We have no idea what could happen if we let our two groups mix."

Barry smiled a knowing smile. Wally rolled his yes. "I think once you meet some of our people, you'll change your mind," the former forensic scientist told them. "I hear Wayne Manor was quite the holdout for sometime."

"There are survivors from the manor?" Dick asked, at the same time Bruce demanded, "is a man named Alfred Pennyworth here?!"

"Yes to both," Barry said, sliding his hands casually into his pockets. "So, wanna work out a plan?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any thoughts so far? Suggestions, critiques, general reactions - seriously anything is appreciated. And thanks so much for reading!


	3. Unions and Reunions

Alfred Pennyworth was a loyal and talented butler. When Wayne Manor became host to the abandoned and injured survivors of Gotham, Bruce had instructed his long-time friend and caretaker to treat the visitors like welcomed house guests - and Alfred had, to a nearly life-threatening degree. He knew as well as Bruce that nothing was more important than keeping the peace down below with all the refugees. It was Alfred's duty to make sure they were supplied with enough food, enough water, enough blankets, and so on. There could be no arguments or brawls, at the risk of anarchy ensuing. And with the help of the young Master Grayson, Alfred had kept things calm for nearly four months. 

Then, Jason Todd had gotten involved. 

Alfred was many things, but a subtle man did not quite make the list. The formal warmth he kept for Bruce and Dick had never been extended to Selina and Jason, and especially not the spawn known as Damian Wayne. Did Alfred love them? Well, those who knew Alfred well enough could tell that yes, he did care for them, deeply in fact. The real problem was that he cared for Bruce and Dick much more, and saw Selina, Jason, and even little Damian as threats to the balance of the Wayne home (he had been right, as usual, and when Dick left home the first time in a fiery rage, Alfred hardly looked at Selina or her children for weeks). Yes, somewhere deep, deep down, he would find affection for the home-wreckers. He did not feel the need to search that deeply, however, and kept his daily interactions with the Kyle-relations hostile and curt.After raising two and a half generations of Waynes, Alfred knew a thing or two about children, and when he looked at Jason Todd he saw not the rebellion of passion that Dick had exhibited so masterfully, but a rebellion of a cold and hard love of chaos and destruction. Any trace of a slightly-troubled but lovable boy Jason had once been was washed clean in his teen years, and Alfred found it very difficult to be around him. He seemed to stand as the one failure on Alfred's spotless record. With every wrecked car or minor run in with the law, Jason crawled an inch deeper under the butler's skin. And something in that sly grin told that he enjoyed every second of it. 

That's why, when Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson showed up at the Gotham City Mall nearly a year later and _without_ Jason, Alfred did not exactly weep. He'd shed tears for all of them many, many times. No use ruining a happy reunion with a painful "what if".

"Master Bruce!" Alfred had said jubilantly, rising to his feet and dusting off his long-tattered suit. Bruce wasted no time with formalities, and quickly crushed the old man in a tight embrace, quickly followed but an even more aggressive assault from the younger of the pair. 

"Aw, Alfie . . ." Dick said, taking no shame in the tears that welled up in his eyes. "We really thought -  _I_ really thought . . ."

They had thought several things; most of them ending with one ultimate and unfortunate fate for their beloved butler. Alfred was not innocent of these pessimistic musings either, though he didn't think wise to mention it. He'd spent several nights lying awake and looking outwards at the cluster of survivors around him. None of them were the Waynes, none of them were his family. He'd escaped, yes, but he'd escaped alone.

Or so Bruce and Dick were dead to believe.

The truth was, Alfred Pennyworth alone knew what really happened that night at Wayne Manor, and he intended to keep it that way. After all, Jason Todd was likely dead, and hostilities aside, Alfred saw no use in dirtying the boy's name now. He had found that deep down, after all, he did care for the hoodlum in the end. Though he hadn't felt a trace of it that night.

When the zombies approached the gate at Wayne Manor, Alfred estimated they had roughly two hours before the first few successful beasts managed to make their way over onto the lawn. From that point, it would be a safe twenty minutes before those slow moving brutes even made it to the front door. Two hours and twenty minutes to evacuate the entire mansion. If he did it right, they would all make it out alive.

Of course, Jason couldn't have that. Dozens of people leaving in a calm, orderly fashion in order to survive? Absurd. And much to Alfred's dismay, Jason had seen the zombies first.

"Master Todd," Alfred had said carefully. "Be wise with this information. We mustn't cause a panic."

"Whatever you say, Jeeves," Jason had replied, that awful grin on his face once more.

Before the butler had a chance to inform even Master Wayne that danger was coming, Jason had slipped away from his family and down the stairs to the refugees, where he was weaving in and out of huddled groups to share the news. The spread was slow at first - after ten minutes, less than a third of the people below knew anything about the zombies outside - but it soon caught like wildfire. The entire first floor was in absolute chaos by the time Alfred had made it back down again. All the survivors who had been sleeping before (at least 75% of them when Alfred had last checked) were awake and panicking. Alfred's initial instinct was to scan the crowd for Dick, to get him back upstairs and through the secret exits with the rest of the family. Next, he looked for Jason, a murderous glint in his eye. 

"Please calm down!" he begged of the guests. "There's more than enough time to get everyone out safely, if you'll all just--"

_Smack!_ Someone hit him over the head. Probably not on purpose, but aggravating all the same. Alfred staggered back up to his feet (that's how hard the blow head been, it had swept him right off the ground) and looked around once more - for anyone this time, anyone who seemed reasonable. And he found it in the faces of a family that stood with their backs to the chaos, watching the old butler with concern. 

"Are you all right?" the man Alfred presumed to be the father asked.

"Yes, thank you," Alfred replied. "But we need to calm this crowd before the situation gets any worse."

"I agree with you completely," the man said. "But how?"

"The basement has an outdoor exit, right?" the woman asked. Alfred figured the couple was married by the fact that they were holding hands, but he made no vocal assumptions. 

"How on Earth do you know  _that?"_ their redheaded boy replied, with a mixture of awe and disdain. Something only a teenager could manage, or a seasoned cynic like Alfred himself.

"If I'm going to take shelter from zombies somewhere, I'm going to figure out all the basic exits."

"Wise strategy, madam," Alfred praised. "And yes, the basement exit does lead to a section of the property far beyond the gate. It used to be the servants' entrance, I believe, many years before I myself was employed by the Waynes." 

"Perfect, let's round up as many people as we can and book it," the boy said eagerly. He began to dart around the room, informing people of the exit plan before it had even fully formed. 

"Can you lead us down there?" the man asked. Alfred nodded once - he knew then that he would never make it back up those stairs. 

It wasn't until later that Alfred learned the reasonable couple was in fact married; the Allens, Barry and Iris. The redheaded boy was not their son, but rather their nephew on Iris's side. All three were from Central City, and had arrived at Wayne Manor just that afternoon after seeing the signs advertising food and shelter down in the city (Bruce and Dick had put those up themselves, shortly after the outbreak began. Selina had been furious). The Allens took charge of the group they managed to wiggle out of the Manor, and they all set up a permanent base in what used to be Gotham's major shopping center. Other groups of survivors came and went within them, but the Allens and Alfred always stayed. The Allens for lack of another place to go, and Alfred with the thin hope that one day, one of his former employers might stumble in. 

"This guy was really your butler?" Wally asked Dick, after the latter had broken his embrace.

"Damn straight," Dick replied with pride in his voice. "Alfred practically raised me. Makes the best cookies on the planet, too."

"I could so go for some cookies, man," the boy introduced as Roy Harper moaned. "Don't tease me like that."

"We knew Alfred worked up at the manor," Barry said, almost apologetically, to Bruce. "But we had no idea you were so . . . close. I promise, if we'd known we would have told you--"

"Right away," Wally agreed. nodding vigorously at Dick. "I mean, now I feel like an idiot because I'm thinking about it and remembering every story you told about your lovable old butler back home, but it never crossed my mind until now that this Alfie was  _the_ Alfie, and--"

"Don't sweat it man," Dick interrupted, taking pity on his friend. Wally looked genuinely distressed that he'd neglected to reconnect the long-lost butler with his long-lost billionaire (and heir) immediately upon their arrival. 

Alfred allowed a small, comfortable silence to fall before he introduced the topic that had been itching away at his mind for months. "The others, are they . . .?"

"Selina and Damian are fine," Bruce answered quickly, just as Dick's eyes drifted towards the floor. Silence fell again. Then, remembering something suddenly, Dick's head shot back up and his eyes found Alfred.

"Jason was downstairs that night!" Dick exclaimed. "Everything got so crazy I forgot but . . . I saw him down there! A couple hours before the zombies came - I tried to talk to him, but he blew right by me. Almost like he was trying to pretend I wasn't there - but, anyway, that's not important now.  _Alfred._ Did Jason make it out with you guys?"

If it had been possible for any of them to remember something as calm as a cricket chirping, or were able to believe that such a sound still existed . . .

"No," Alfred said finally, definitely, condemning Jason Todd to the fate they had all suspected he'd met long ago. "I'm so  _very_ sorry, Master Bruce."

"It isn't your fault, Alfred," Bruce said with the same certainty. "I should have been keeping my eye on him."

"I should have followed after him," Dick chimed. "If it's anyone's fault it's _mine_." There was something deeper there.

Dick Grayson and Jason Todd had, for a majority of their lives, shared a special secret between the two of them, that neither ever dared to say aloud or inform another living soul. That secret was this: despite their many arguments and relentless teasing, Dick viewed Jason as his younger brother, his responsibility, his  _job_ , and he loved him as such; Jason viewed Dick as his older brother, his mentor, his precedent, and he loved him as such as well. There was, undoubtedly, resentment mixed in with either side's emotions, but nonetheless the boys were close in a way that only siblings can be. If Jason needed advice, he'd wait until the early hours of the morning before the house was awake, and sneak into Dick's room to talk. If Dick was angry and needed to rant, he'd locate Jason anywhere in the house and pull him aside for any period of time stretching from minutes to hours. All things said in confidence remained in confidence, and no one was judged. Without speaking it, without ever making a single action to suggest it, they knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that they had each other's backs. That they cared about each other. That if anyone messed with either of them, the other would be there to defend him in a heartbeat. 

For Dick, that meant protecting Jason was on him. And he'd failed.

Wally and Oliver, both recognizing the name  _Jason Todd_ from their conversations with Dick and Bruce respectively, raised a careful glance up to their friends. Wally held out a comforting hand, and let it rest for a moment on Dick's shoulder. Oliver hovered behind Bruce at an angle, so to say  _I'm here, but I won't invade._

Seconds ticked by, or maybe it was just more years. Eventually, impossibly, Barry Allen managed to find his voice again. "There's a room on the second floor where we can be alone to discuss . . . plans."

"Sounds perfect," Bruce agreed, and gestured for Barry to lead the way. Bruce, Oliver, Dinah, and Alfred followed after him dutifully, with Roy, Dick, and Wally tailing slightly behind. 

"Was Jason your brother?" Roy asked, since no one had told him previously.

"Yeah," Dick said.

"That sucks, man."

"Yeah," Dick said. 

* * *

 

Iris West was a natural reporter; not just in occupation, but as her one purpose in life. She had a talent for consuming and relaying information in an amicable yet informative way that was so absolutely captivating, she could turn a room of close friends into an audience in two seconds flat. Bruce Wayne did not have this talent, but he was able to recognize it in others rather quickly. Which was why, when asked who he'd like to travel back into the woods as a spokesperson for the survivors at the mall, it required no thought at all. 

Barry was hesitant to let her go alone, something Bruce recognized as adorable but mostly thought was stupid. If a person like Iris couldn't handle themselves on a short trip in a covered vehicle, all hope for humanity was lost. Still, he allowed Alfred to offer a peaceful solution. "Suppose myself and young Wallace accompanied Miss West on this brief visit, so that you may stay here and watch over things, Mr. Allen."

That worked for Barry, which was damn well good for Bruce since he had at this point decided with absolute certainty that if he tried explaining the situation to Selina himself, he'd end up with a bruised jaw. 

"Road trip!" Wally exclaimed gleefully, punching Dick on the shoulder lightly to re-establish the fact that not even the zombie apocalypse and nearly a year apart could stall their friendship. 

"Can I come? Please!" The plea came from a boy who could have been anywhere between 12 and 14 - small for his age if the latter, and rather skinny for either. The boy stepped forward from one cluster of survivors that had gathered in the mall cafeteria half an hour before, when a beady-eyed woman named Mae announced that the daily meal had been prepared. 

Wally crouched down to be at eye-level with the boy, setting a friendly hand on his shoulder. "Not this time, Gar. We're not sure if the roads are completely safe, and it'll be dark soon."

"Aw, c'mon  _pleeeease?"_ the boy begged. "I haven't left the mall  _once_ since we came here! Iris keeps saying I'm too little . . ." He grumbled the last part a little, crossing his noodle-like arms over his tiny chest. 

But Iris West had sharp ears. "I do  _not_ say it like that," she protested. "I said you're too  _young,_ and I stand by that."

"You let  _other_ kids go."

"If their parents are okay with it, it's not my place to tell them to stay."

"Yes," Garfield agreed. "The difference being the other kids  _have_ parents to tell them yes or no. You guys keep deciding for me . . ."

Iris made a fake pout. "Wah, life is unfair. Tell you what - if we're back early enough tomorrow morning, I'll let you come with me on the 9 o'clock sweep. I'll show you all the ways to get out of the city in case things get bad."

Garfield thought the offer over. He was being patronized, and he knew it well, but patronizing or no, Iris was offering him a way  _out_ of the damned mall. "Deal. But you'd better bring me back something cool from the woods."

"I'll try my best," she vowed.

They ate quickly and with little conversation. Daylight was precious, and short-lasting. The last thing anyone wanted was to know what it was like to drive off-road at night with zombies roaming free.

Barry and Iris said goodbye faster than Bruce had been anticipating. They kissed only once, and he gave her quick squeeze from the side. As for Wally, he pulled his nephew in close and ruffled his hair, then sent him off as well. No time was wasted, and Bruce appreciated that. 

"So, how many people do you have at this camp?" Iris asked after a few minutes of driving in silence. She was staring out the window taking in the view, but clearly still listening and eager for an answer.

"I actually don't know," Dinah confessed. "Dick?"

"Twenty-seven," he replied easily. "Used to be thirty-one."

"What happened?" Iris asked bluntly, though she managed it in a manner that didn't  _feel_ blunt, but concerned. Empathetic. 

Dick held up his index finger. "Mrs. Drake was bitten at the Manor, but we didn't realize until we'd settled down." He held out three more. "Mr. Drake, Joe Peters, and Dev Parker were attacked not too far from camp, just a few weeks ago."

Silence fell. Maybe it had been the way Dick remembered each of their names, or the way he still referred to Tim's father as  _Mr. Drake_ despite him being dead - well, dead or undead, depending on how much of him the zombies left when they'd finished feasting. Dick and Tim hadn't stuck around to find out.

"Bet you know every damn person there, Grayson," Wally teased, because he knew exactly what had caused the awkward silence and wished to amend it - to make it something happier. Of course Dick would know all their names - not just the ones who had died, but the ones that were still alive, still holding out.

"Maybe I do," Dick replied lightly, catching on. "Is that a challenge?"

"We'll just see how many introductions you can make once we get there," Wally said, in a way that jokingly suggested Dick would never be able to remember everyone. Truthfully, Dick _did_ know all their names.

"How much longer will that be, by the way?" Roy asked, with clear boredom in his voice.

Ollie smirked. "Awhile."

"How long is awhile?"

"Oh, an ambiguous incriminate of time."

" _Oliver."_

"What?"

They went on like that for a few minutes, before it got boring again and everyone in the car needed to move their mind on to something else. Wally suggested they play the license plate game, which earned him six perfect glares. His next idea was a sing-a-long, which went over about as well as the first. Finally, he submitted to leaning his head against the window (over Dick's lap, mind you) and sighing loudly every few seconds, to remind his fellow passengers just how much life they were sucking out of him.  

The sun was starting to set in the west, and unease was forming like a scratchy blanket over everyone in the jeep. "How much longer?" someone asked.

"Not much," Oliver replied, since he was driving now. 

"Did we go the right way?" Roy peered out the window over his aunt's head, trying to get a better look at the shadowy trees that surrounded them. "None of this looks familiar."

"That's just because it's getting dark," Dick offered. "The woods at night look entirely different than they do during the day."

"Comforting."

Dick opened his mouth, perhaps to offer a sarcastic retort or another attempt at calming everyone's nerves, but he was interrupted by a loud scream. A child's scream.

"Stop the car." Bruce said suddenly, with such force that Ollie obeyed without even thinking about it. 

"Master Bruce, that couldn't have been--"

"Damian," Bruce and Dick confirmed in unison. Wally saw a familiar, far-off look in his friend's eyes. The same sort of look Dick got when they rode on the subway together very late at night and a gang of large, drunk men boarded their car, or when Allyson Schmidt had showed up at their dorm in tears, because she lost sight of her friend at a bar and feared for the worst. It was the look Dick had when he knew someone might be in danger, a complex combination of worry and determination. Wally knew because he'd seen it on his uncle's face as well, and his own from time to time, and again, right now, on Bruce Wayne. 

"Damian, that's your little brother?" Wally asked, to be sure.

Dick nodded once, and opened and slid out the door in one smooth motion. 

"Dick!" Roy hissed, his shoulders tensing. Bruce was already out of the jeep as well. 

"I'm going too," Wally announced, sliding over into Dick's seat and readying his hand on the door.

"Don't you even think about it!" Iris exclaimed. Everyone else had grown terribly silent. 

"Don't worry, I'll be fine." He kissed her quickly on the cheek and slipped out the door before she could protest further.

After walking alone in the trees for a minute, trying to find Dick and Bruce, Wally noticed that Roy had also followed behind him. That kid was incredibly light on his feet - it was almost spooky. "Do you know which way they went?"

Roy crouched down and tried to get a good look at the dirt. "Hard to track at night . . . I think this way, though."

"How can you tell?"

"The leaves look trampled - more than if it were just a rabbit or something, see here? Something heavy passed over it . . . A person, probably a man." 

Just then, they heard another scream. This time, it was a woman. 

"Selina?!" It was Bruce's voice, but it came from everywhere at once. Almost like he was . . .

"Up here!" Dick called, noticing Wally and Roy below him for the first time. Somehow, he'd managed to climb all the way to the highest branches of a tree about three yards away. Bruce was in it too, though much closer to the ground.

"There's still a little light past the tree tops," Dick exclaimed, jumping down and landing perfectly on his feet. "I was trying to see if . . ." He trailed off, listening. His head snapped up, suddenly. "This way, I think."

The three others followed after him as he sprinted off to the left. They kept going, on and on, until they reached a small stream.

"Jay and I found this place when we were younger," he explained quickly. "We'd follow it home whenever we got lost. It runs in the opposite direction of the Manor."

"You and Jason never played in the woods," Bruce said.

Dick winked. "Not as far as you know."

"So why are we here?" Roy asked impatiently. The sun had almost completely disappeared from the sky now, and hopes of finding their way back to the jeep were sinking.

"Well, we showed this place to Damian, obviously," Dick continued. "And Tim, too, once everyone had settled in at our camp . . . I told them both that if they were ever lost or in trouble to come straight to the water."

"How do we know they aren't further upstream?" Wally asked. "Or down."

"We don't. Which is why we're splitting into two groups - Wally, with me. Bruce, you take Roy - you guys know the woods well enough between the two of you by now."

Roy nodded only once, then began running in the opposite direction. Bruce followed after, granted at a much slower pace.

"Think you can keep up with me, Grayson?" Wally asked.

"Ain't even gonna try, West."

Ten minutes passed before either pair found anything. Then, just when Dick was about to declare complete and total defeat, and suggest they spread out to other areas of the woods, another scream let out. This time, it sounded much closer than before.

Wally and Dick stopped dead in their tracks. "What direction was that?"

"Shh."

Another scream.

"Right!"

They took off together, Wally not bothering to match pace with his friend. Dick was preoccupied, anyway, scanning the trees branches rather than their roots. He'd taught Tim and Damian how to escape the zombies if they needed to - zombies can't climb trees.

"Dick!" someone shouted, in a voice that was so happy, so relieved, so genuine, that Dick felt an actual sob rising up in his chest. 

"Where are you?!" he called back frantically, looking all around him. Wally had stopped running and doubled back when he heard a person call out. 

"Here, we're here!" It was Tim, it had to be. Only Tim could sound that friendly while fending off zombies from a tree. Dick followed his voice until he reached the base of a large tree, surrounded by three pretty gruesome looking zombies. 

Dick and Wally simultaneously selected their weapons from the ground, quickly and quietly. Wally chose a rather large and heavy-looking rock, and Dick went with a fallen branch that was thin enough to wrap is entire hand around, but thick enough to hurt. If zombies felt pain, that is. Together, like synchronized swimmers, the two boys spread out to either side of the tree, ready to attack from both ends. They struck at the same time, Dick taking down the tallest of the three, and Wally going for the fattest. 

"Mine's got a monocle!" Wally exclaimed, his voice an even combination of shock and humor. "The hell does a zombie need a - the hell does  _anyone_ need a monocle for nowadays?!"  _  
_

Dick's zombie was not interesting at all, other than being incredibly tall and bald, he had nothing particularly awesome going for him. There was a huge chunk of skin missing from his neck, and one of his arms had a gash in it so deep that even in the moonlight, Dick could see the bone. He hit the thing as hard as he could over the head with his stick. The force broke the weapon in two, and without missing a beat Dick had picked up both halves and started using them almost like dual swords. He bashed the zombie, which was now rising to its feet, on either side of its head. This time the zombie did not get back up. Wally was still busy violently bashing his zombie's with the rock, so Dick moved on to the third one alone. This time, he  _did_ find something funny.

"I think mine was a clown," he managed through deep breaths, already feeling winded. He beat the thing several times in the gut before Wally saw and shouted:

"The _head_ _,_ Dick!"

"Oh, right."

The clown was down in seconds. Wally walked over to stand over it with his friend, to see for himself what Dick had been talking about.

"Zombie wearing facepaint . . . Repulsive."

"Agreed."

There was a light _thud,_ and Dick felt a bone-crushing hug from behind. He turned around and returned the embrace. 

"I thought we were dead!" Tim exclaimed.

" _We?"_ Dick repeated.

"We!" Selina confirmed, somehow managing to look graceful as she climbed down from her perch on one of the higher branches. After her, Damian jumped down, and would have broken his ankle had Dick not caught him in time. The weight of the ten-year-old was enough to make his knees buckle, but the motivation _not_ to fall on top of three dead zombies and get their guts all over him was enough motivation to keep Dick on his feet. 

"Where are the others?" Dick asked, looking around.

"Still at camp," Tim told him. "The three of us left to go find you guys . . . You've been gone for hours!"

"You didn't take a car?!"

Damian rolled his eyes. "Would you put me _down?_ Of  _course_ we took a car. It ran out of gas."

"So instead of turning around you just decided to brave the next several miles on foot? Great plan." Dick was angry now; angry, and relieved that they were all still alive.

"No, we tried to go back but . . . well." Tim shrugged. "Zombies."

"Only these three?" Wally asked, looking over their carcasses.

Tim nodded. "Yep. Why?"

"In the city they travel in bigger groups . . ."

"You found them?!"

All heads turned to see Bruce barreling forward, and Roy trailing behind. Selina gave her husband a small smile, and Damian hardly resisted the hug his father gave him. Even Tim got a squeeze on the shoulder. It was an affectionate day for Bruce Wayne. Dick, Roy, and Wally hung back a bit to whisper while the happy family caught up.

"There have got to be more around," Wally said, under his breath. "That clown one? My Uncle Barry has seen it before. He came back from a scouting one night with this funny look on his face, and when I asked him why he said he thought a circus might have been infected nearby. A zombie clown, in a huge group, passed right through Gotham City towards the East."

"Yep, that would be _here,_ " Dick agreed solemnly. "So where's the rest of the group? And how big is 'huge'?"

Wally shrugged. "Uncle Barry didn't count. He just . . . I don't know, he looked _troubled._ "

"They can smell living meat." Roy's gaze looked a million miles out, at nothing at all. "I'm nearly positive. The way they _know_ where to find us . . ."

"How badly do you think _we_ smell?" Wally asked, inching closer to Dick ever-so-slightly. 

Dick sighed, a horrible possibility dawning on him. "Worse: how badly do you think _camp_ smells?"

"What are you three scheming about?"

"Ollie?!" Roy exclaimed, jumping nearly a foot. "You were - where's the jeep?!"

"Parked by the water," Iris said. She and Dinah were there now two. She glared at Wally dangerously, and he shrunk away instinctively.

"How did you find us?" Bruce asked, turning his attention from his family to his friends. He, Selina, Damian, and Tim traveled over to where the others were, so that their whole group was now standing in a sort of lopsided circle beneath the trees.   

"You leave a nice trail," Oliver joked. "Now, c'mon, it's  _waaay_ too dark out here for my liking. We need to get back to camp before more zombies come." _  
_

Dick, Wally, and Roy exchanged nervous looks, but said nothing. They were not reporters - not part of the elite group of Iris Wests in the world. In addition to social tact and controlled empathy, reporters require one superpower none of the three possessed: a special breed of bravery. The kind that allowed you to look into the eyes of your friends and family and say, "I think everyone we know might be dead". Sometimes, the boy silently agreed, it was better to stay quiet. 

**Author's Note:**

> More characters will be added in the next chapter - I won't give away any spoilers, but let's just say their introductions should be pretty speedy (hint hint nudge nudge).


End file.
